


The Kids Are Alright

by smokingbomber



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: AU, Comedy, Ficchat Flopsy, Friendship, Gen, Goth Rei, Joy Division - Freeform, Mamoru In Disguises, Patently ridiculous, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:54:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: The girls find the guys before the guys find Mamoru, who they're hiding from because they're so stupidly guilty about failing him twice. Rei has an IDEA and enlists Mamoru-- it goes so well that the other girls demand the same (also because nobody can resist getting Mamoru to dress up like a scenester.)





	The Kids Are Alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daidia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daidia/gifts).



Mamoru checked his eyeliner in the mirror. He noted with some satisfaction that Minako’s advice re: wings and credit cards was, in fact, on point– the wings he’d given himself could cut through a tritanium hull. He straightened up and glanced at Rei for approval, but she was busy putting the finishing touches on her mascara.

Then she glanced at him and looked absolutely appalled. “Mamoru. You didn’t use lipliner.”

“I thought you were supposed to use one or the other! There’s so much crap to put on it’s like blending modes on photoshop layers–”

“Here,” she said with ferocious authority, reaching up to grab his shoulders and turn him around, then shoving him back to lean against the bathroom counter so he wasn’t too tall. She picked up a mystifying array of implements and pigments and went to work on the prince’s lips; knowing better than to move his mouth at all, Mamoru just shut up and thought at her.

His telepathy with the girls except for Usagi still needed a lot of work, but he could at least lean on the psychometric underpinnings of imagery and his rather more well-developed empathy to get his meanings across.

_The concept of a question: Usagi in the bar with Jadeite, plying him with froofy drinks and pointing at the Princess Bride on the bar’s TV._

“Yeah, and if mai tais and cult romances don’t do it, then face it, Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope,” said Rei, preoccupied as she finished cleaning off Mamoru’s attempt at black lipstick and started applying matte black lipliner with the precision of an Xacto knife.

_The concept of confusion: Robert Smith circa 1987, and his messy messy lipstick and epic bedhead and enormous white high-top sneakers._

“No. You are not Robert Smith. You are to introduce yourself as not Mamoru, not Endymion, but The End. You should model your behavior after Ian Curtis.” A critical pause as Rei leaned back to survey her handiwork, and then she nodded and stuck a kleenex between Mamoru’s lips. “Okay, omf it.”

Mamoru obediently omfed the kleenex and left an impression of his lips in black cakey lip product, then made a face. “How do you drink anything?”

“You don’t,” Rei said shortly, then plucked the kleenex away and tossed it in the bin. She eyed him once more. “Safetypin in ear, check. Studded collar with cross, check. Extraneous chains and strangely-placed D-rings, go. Black nail polish, extra check. One sec–”

She ran her hand through Mamoru’s hair to make it stick up a little more, then applied enough hairspray to lacquer it for a week. “Okay, let’s go.”

~~~

The hotel bar was a gentrified affair, meant to appeal to hipsters and yuppies alike, and Mamoru felt out of place in his skin and at home in the bar, which gave him an existential crisis with a side of cognitive dissonance. He nevertheless played his part to the hilt, shoegazing sullenly in the door with Rei on his arm. He muttered ‘canteloupe watermelon canteloupe watermelon’ until they were in earshot of Usagi and Jadeite’s mournful presence, and then switched to actual content.

“Everything,” he murmured aside to Rei as he sat down next to Jadeite, and Rei took the seat on his opposite side, “is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

He could hear Usagi whisper frantically to Jadeite, “Rei brought a date what do we do?!”

Frankly, he was impressed with her acting. Or his costume, he wasn’t sure which.

“You’re so profound,” Rei told Mamoru in a terrifyingly sultry voice. “The bleakness makes all mortal points of light so much brighter, doesn’t it? You’re so right. Oh– hi Jadeite. Hi Usagi-chan! This is my new boyfriend, isn’t he precious?”

Mamoru turned his heavily made-up face to the others and couldn’t meet their eyes, but that, too, was in character. “It’s a pleasure to meet you before the destruction of everything we hold dear.” He held out his hand. “I am… The End.”

Jadeite stared. Beyond Jadeite, Usagi was turning purple with the effort not to die laughing.

Jadeite took the proffered hand, opened his mouth to say something, and stopped short.

_Everything was gold and welcome and warm amusement; his Prince’s empathy was a two-way street, and offered all the understanding and time and space Jadeite would ever need to know that he could come back._

What’s more, behind the mask of eyeliner and early goth/entropy groupie, ocean-blue eyes sparkled at him with affectionate laughter.

“Kiss your girlfriend, dumbass. Then come home with me. We did actually get past the end of the world, you kn–”

Anything else he might’ve said was muffled by the fluffiest and now-least-depressed of his long-lost Shitennou hurling himself at Mamoru to hug him like a baby monkey.

**Author's Note:**

> This started with a ficchat flopsy prompted by caffeinivore@tumblr (http://caffeineivore.tumblr.com/post/24649157046/everything-is-more-beautiful-because-were-doomed) which daidia@tumblr promptly leapt on and demanded Zoisite dressed like Salt'n'Pepa. I'm not liable to get there, aaaah I suck sorry. But at least there's this one.


End file.
